For the Haiti Challenge, the Architecture for Humanity team provided on-the-ground reports from Haiti.
Following Marie Beliard, we were driving to the horse park. “They’re competing today,” Stacey tells us.
For the competition, Haitian riders would guide their trusty steeds (technical term!) through a ribbon course of jumping bars and pools – a route that’s called, from what I understand, a parcours. (Evidently, the gymnast building hoppers adapted this obstacle course to the concrete jungles of East Europe.) Stacey’s confident the girls will love it.
The equestrian center is, as many things are in Port-au-Prince, tucked into a breezy and verdant pocket of the city just off the main road flanked by slums. Yet the center itself is immaculate. The hippodrome bore a neat lawn with cheerful obstacles. Shaded observation areas boarded two sides; another sported hand-painted billboards (Duracell; Dog Chow; Pringles); at the fourth stood a broadcasting booth and a giant speaker atop a mast. Behind the Hippodrome was a dirt corral where riders and horses were warming up. In the gravel parking lot, shiny black cars and a conspicuous UN truck had already been stationed.
We nab an iron table in the shade and took in the scene before the competition began. Stacey and the rest of AFH often visited the equestrian center on weekends for a lesson or an event; it’s a quick getaway from the oftentimes relentless work they face rebuilding the country.
We spot Paco, the trainer, right away, in the corral talking with riders and inspecting horses. Paco was Dominican, a confident man approaching middle age. He wears a white baseball hat and aviators, striding from place to place, with a slight limp. A curious and extremely passionate fellow, you can tell.
“They say he once bit a horse,” Stacey whispers as he saunters past. I spend the next hour trying to resolve those logistics. She peels off to chat with him.
The crowd is slow to filter in. The girls are preoccupied with Pouchon’s and Stacey’s cell phones – snapping pictures of each other, of us.
Pouchon, reasoning I spoke French, strikes up a conversation. It turns out he had recognized me from earlier visits – and then I recognize him. He was a security guard at the AFH house, back in the day.
What was I doing back? he wondered.
Reporting, writing, I say. Covering reconstruction.
Like a journalist?
Like a blogger…why, do you see a lot of journalists around these days?
We continue in that vein. I struggle at times to convey what I mean. Pouchon offers that I could speak English, he understands it. Wait – hold on – if he understands English, then why were we sitting in the car earlier translating everything through Ronald?? I guess politeness is a reasonable course to take. But this realization suddenly made an entangled conversation practically absurd.
As we chatted it was hard to avoid Genie’s mother. By all regards, the girls are good friends, despite an age difference. Genie poses for all the pictures Rosie is taking, and even takes a few selfies of her own. I realize she may be a little spoiled.
The tables were now decked in white cloths (except ours), and all the chairs had been taken by people anticipating the show. A boisterous French voice comes over the PA – mercifully interrupting an American country album – and announces the lineup of competitors. Paco takes to the center of the field to pay close attention to the performances.
The rides begin. Some are better than others, and you get to see how each of the horses engage the obstacles–with confidence or trepidation. A rider Stacey knew actually scores a perfect ride. Even the announcer is flabbergasted.
Soon it’s time for me to go. I say good-bye to Pouchon, the girls. Stacey, I thank for being able to tag along on this short trip–I wish I could stay longer, I say, but I have an appointment on Monday I simply cannot miss. Ronald and I climb into the rented Hyundai, and, after a few wheel spins in the deep gravel, pull away and out of Haiti Equestrian. As always, a guard slides open a solid metal gate for us, and Ronald waves him a thank-you.
Outside the park, Port-au-Prince is back to Port-au-Prince. The noise of the street. The concrete walls capped in broken glass. A malfunctioning traffic light. This is the Kreyol part of town if you think about it in language. Haiti Equestrian was a French part of town.
It’s easy to think these two Haitis are siloed from one another. Kreyol speakers hardly seem to have access to the equestrian park. But that’s not altogether true. Haiti Equestrian is not simply a passion for the elite. In fact, Paco regularly offers discounted courses to underprivileged and disabled children. He advocates horse riding as a means of physical rehabilitation. His park’s walls are permeable.
